Maidenhead & Windsor

Maidenhead Cllr Leo Walters, the Royal Borough’s longest-serving member, looks set to be the borough’s new Mayor. This will be his second term as Mayor, having previously served as first citizen in 2002/03.

Cllr Walters, who represents Bray ward, Maidenhead has been nominated as Mayor-elect for 2007/2008, with Oldfield (Maidenhead) councillor Cllr Dorothy Kemp as Deputy Mayor. The election ceremony will take place at the council’s annual meeting in the Town Hall on Tuesday May 22.

Cllr Walters’ long association with the Maidenhead Royal Borough goes back to the days of local government re-organisation in 1974, though he had previously served for seven years on Cookham Rural District Council. He has also been a member of Bray Parish Council for the last 40 years.

Born in London in 1933, Cllr Walters studied estate management and is qualified as both a chartered surveyor and a barrister. He was chief estates surveyor for the former British Overseas Airways Corporation and then British Airways, and now works in London as a property consultant. He is a member of a city livery company and a former honorary treasurer of the International Real Estate Federation.

During his three years in the Army, Cllr Walters was commissioned in the Queen’s Royal Regiment and serving in the Royal West African Frontier Force in Nigeria. He was also a member of the Territorial Army for ten years. He and his wife Margaret have one daughter, and have lived in Holyport since 1965.

Throughout his long and busy career in local government, Cllr Walters has served on many committees and sub-committees and he has maintained a passionate interest in planning.

Cllr Kemp has been an Oldfield ward representative since May 1998 and over the past nine years has served on a large number of council committees, boards and panels. She has a particular interest in issues affecting children and young people and has represented the council on a range of outside bodies and organisations looking after the interests of youth in the community. These include membership of Castle Hill Youth and Community Centre management committee and the borough’s Early Years Partnership. She is also a school governor at both Cox Green Maidenhead Comprehensive and Woodlands Park Primary Schools.

Cllr Kemp is widowed and has three grown up children.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead